The reading of the squire’s will made public the real condition of affairs.  Julius had spoken with the lawyer previously, and made clear to him his right in equity to stand in the heir’s place.  But the squires and statesmen of the Dales heard the substitution with muttered dissents, or in a silence still more emphatic of disapproval.  Ducie and Mrs. Sandal and Charlotte were shocked and astounded at the revelation, and there was not a family in Sandal-Side who had that night a good word for Julius Sandal.  He thought it very hard, and said so.  He had not forced Harry in any way.  He had taken no advantage of him.  Harry was quite satisfied with the exchange, and what had other people to do with his affairs?  He did not care for their opinion.  “That for it!” and he snapped his fingers defiantly to every point of the compass.  But, all the same, he walked the floor of the east rooms nearly all night, and kept Sophia awake to listen to his complaints.

Sophia was fretful and sleepy, and not as sympathetic with “the soul that halved her own,” as centuries of fellow-feeling might have claimed; but she had her special worries.  She perceived, even thus early, that as long as the late squire’s widow was in the Seat, her own authority would be imperfect.  “Of course, she did not wish to hurry her mother; but she would feel, in her place, how much more comfortable for all a change would be.  And mother had her dower-house in the village; a very comfortable home, quite large enough for Charlotte and herself and a couple of maids, which was certainly all they needed.”

Where did such thoughts and feelings spring from?  Were they lying dormant in her heart that summer when the squire drove home his harvest, and her mother went joyfully up and down the sunny old rooms, always devising something for her girls’ comfort or pleasures?  In those days how proud Sophia had been of her father and mother!  What indignation she would have felt had one suggested that the time was coming when she would be glad to see a stranger in her father’s place, and feel impatient to say to her mother, “Step down lower; I would be mistress in your room”!  Alas! there are depths in the human heart we fear to look into; for we know that often all that is necessary to assuage a great grief, or obliterate a great loss, is the inheritance of a fine mansion, or a little money, or a few jewels, or even a rich garment.  And as soon as the squire was in his grave, Julius and Sophia began to discuss the plans which only a very shallow shame had made them reticent about before.

Indeed, it soon became necessary for others, also, to discuss the future.  People soon grow unwelcome in a house that is not their own; and the new squire of Sandal-Side was eager to so renovate and change the place that it would cease to remind him of his immediate predecessors.  The Sandals of past centuries were welcome, they gave dignity to his claims; but the last squire, and his son Harry Sandal, only reminded him of circumstances he felt it more comfortable to forget.  So, during the long, dreary days of midwinter, he and Sophia occupied themselves very pleasantly in selecting styles of furniture, and colors of draperies, and in arranging for a full suite of Oriental rooms, which were to perpetuate in pottery and lacquerware, Indian bronzes and mattings, Chinese screens and cabinets, the Anglo-Indian possessor of the old Cumberland estate.